Sometimes you're not even sure which of your stories were failures. There are things I've written that I thought were complete catastrophes when I finished with them that have gone on to generate some of my most positive feedback.

Great poetry is always written by somebody straining to go beyond what he can do.

I've already written 300 space poems. But I look upon my ultimate form as being a poetic prose. When you read it it appears to be prose but within the prose you have embedded the techniques of poetry.

I have always written poetry but I have never applied it to songwriting.

Written poetry is different. Best thing is to see it in performance first then read it. Performance is more provocative.

I've always written. When I was in school the only teacher who ever liked me was my creative writing teacher. I used to enter poetry competitions and I don't think I ever lost one. So I had the idea for a while of being some kind of poet.

I published privately a collection of my serious poetry I had written over the years. I only published 50 copies which I gave to friends in a special deluxe edition. It was ridiculously expensive but I'm glad that I did it.

And yet in a culture like ours which is given to material comforts and addicted to forms of entertainment that offer immediate gratification it is surprising that so much poetry is written.

Distinctly American poetry is usually written in the context of one's geographic landscape sometimes out of one's cultural myths and often with reference to gender and race or ethnic origins.

There is probably nothing wrong with art for art's sake if we take the phrase seriously and not take it to mean the kind of poetry written in England forty years ago.